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Saturday, 24 November 2012

9-MONTH-OLD BABY DIES IN CRECHE

Inset: Little Osezua

When Mr. Anthony and Dr. Jennifer Abuneme dropped their 9-month-old baby, Osezua
Emmanuel, at his creche on 12 Novemver, they never knew that was the last time they would see him alive. The Abunemes got married on May 14,
2011 registered their baby at the
crèche section of the Masters Ville Children School, Ajao Estate in September.

On Nov. 12, Osezua’s parents dropped him off at school at about 7 am
and went to their different places of work. But about three hours after they left the creche they were called and informed
that their son, whom they had left in the care of a nanny, had been
rushed to the Faith City Hospital, breathless. In disbelief, the couple rushed to the hospital only to be shown the
lifeless body of their son at the emergency ward, which is situated
opposite the school.

Very sad indeed. I hope the police are able to get to the root of this case to determine what exactly happened to Osezua. I know it won't bring him back, but it might save other children. RIP little angel. Continue to read the rest of this sad incident...

Whatever transpired behind the walls of Osezua’s school within the
three-hour interval between the period he took ill and arrived at the
hospital dead, in spite of its proximity to the school, is shrouded in
mystery. Mr Abuneme said when he arrived at the
hospital, he instinctively took the lifeless body of his son and tried
to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation but it was in vain.

As soon as he realized that his son was dead, Mr. Abuneme
contacted a church priest who came to bless the corpse and prepared it
for immediate burial. He said he had to bury the child and go back home to grieve, knowing
that there was no point dissipating energy on legal action of any kind.

He said, “I requested an explanation of what really happened. What
they told me was that my son choked when they were feeding him. We
handed him over to one of the nannies, one Ijere at about 7 am on that
day and drove off to work.

“But I learnt that when the other nanny, Mrs. Dauda came, she asked
Ijere why she had Osezua strapped on her back. The other woman said she
had to carry him on her back because nobody was around when we brought
him to the school and she wanted to do something.

“Dauda said she took my boy from her colleague and in her words, both
she and Osezua slept off. When they woke up, Osezua started crying and
she wanted to give him food. That morning, my wife had prepared a meal
of beans and put it in his pack. The nanny said she fed him about four
spoons of the meal and she was about to give him the fifth, when the boy
choked. Then she raised the alarm.

“I was told that Mrs. Ijere (who was actually an auxiliary nurse)
said she held the boy upside down in an attempt to resuscitate him,
albeit in a crude way, instead of dashing across the road to the
hospital, which was just within easy reach.”

Masters Ville Children School is very close to Faith City Hospital.
Both institutions are numbered 11 and 16, respectively, on Asa-Afariogun
Street in upscale Ajao Estate, in the Okota area of Lagos.

But on the second day, the boy’s mother discovered blood stains on
his dress. The clothe had smelt of mentholatum ointment when it was
returned. The discovery had ticked off an alarm and the Abunemes decided to
unravel the mysterious circumstances surrounding their son’s sudden
death.

“I made up my mind to get to the root of what happened to my boy. It
was not that it would bring him back to life because I knew that he was
gone forever. But I was worried about other children. The incident
happened on Monday and I contacted the police on Friday. This tells you
that my mission is to sensitise other parents and warn them about what
may happen to their children at any time,” he said.

Abuneme complained that the attitude of the authorities of the
Masters Ville School toward the tragic incident did not help matters. He
said there was no representation from the school after he buried his
child.

“In fact, when people started coming to commiserate with us
at home, some of my friends and family became curious when they did not
see anybody from the school. Some of them even threatened to storm the
school and create a scene, but I pleaded with them not to do that.

“They insisted on going there, at least to let the school authorities
realise that even if it was a chicken that died in their poultry, there
should be a measure of compassion, let alone a child. They went and
when they came back, they told me that the school management said they
would have come, but they feared that they might be lynched.

“It was after this that representation from the school came. When I
reported the case at the police station in the estate, it took the
school some time before they could produce the pair of Ijere and Dauda
who repeated the same story that I just narrated to you.

“I believe the school is hiding something from us. For instance, the
bottled water in my son’s pack was still intact. Yet, he was fed. How
can somebody feed a boy of nine months without giving him water to
drink? Curiously, the hot water, which my wife put in his flask, was
half-full when the pack was brought home.

“What did they do with the hot water? We fed the boy with cereal
before taking him to school that morning? Nobody told us anything about
blood, so how come there were blood stains on his dress? What about the
mentholatum?

“When I asked why they didn’t take him to the hospital opposite the
school almost immediately, I was told that they were trying to put him
in a bus and were trying to open the gate. Someone could have held him
and dashed across the road to the hospital in less than one minute.

“When I went back to the hospital, the doctor told me that he did not
have any chance to help the boy because he was brought in dead. It was
the same doctor that took his delivery. So he is more or less like a
member of our family. I can imagine how he felt about the situation.”

The family wrote a petition to the Commissioner of Police in Lagos
State through the Ajao Police Station, urging the law enforcement agency
to find out why their son was left to die instead of being rushed to
the nearby hospital. A few arrests were made, but the school authorities
have been making different representations to plead with the Abunemes.

3 comments:

May God preserve us. But seriously,if the beans is not very soft and well mashed a 9 month old could choke and die as a result. Also, there'd be blood as a result of the choking. Only God knows what really happened.